


Dew of Little Things

by lynndyre



Series: Yuri Lowell, Private Eye [6]
Category: Tales of Vesperia
Genre: Alternate Universe - Detectives, Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Friendship, Gen, Hurt/Comfort, Suicide Attempt
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-09-04
Updated: 2013-09-04
Packaged: 2017-12-25 15:26:54
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,219
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/954732
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/lynndyre/pseuds/lynndyre
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Directly follows 'Your Friend is Your Needs Answered'.</p>
<p>Just because Yuri feels everything's resolved doesn't mean Flynn does.  And sometimes a friend can help more than a lover.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Dew of Little Things

**Author's Note:**

> The quotation is from Kahlil Gibran 'On Friendship'(like a few other titles from this series) -  
>  _For in the dew of little things the heart finds its morning and is refreshed._

Flynn let Yuri feed him the painkillers, peel his shirt off and tuck him into bed. Repede curled up across his feet, a confusing lie of a sensation that made him wonder for a moment when Yuri was coming to bed, before he remembered. He shut his eyes and tried to neither think nor feel.

When he woke up, he was alone again. It was dark, and he told himself he wasn’t surprised. The painkillers had worn off, and his shoulder burned where Commissioner Dinoia's bullet had gone through it, but he couldn’t bring himself to take more. He didn’t want to sleep. He pushed them down into his pocket instead. 

He couldn’t manage a sleeve on his left arm, but he half-buttoned a shirt around the sling, and threw a jacket over all of it. Then he fished through his keyring and knelt awkwardly to retrieve his backup from its case. It clipped easily onto his belt. He stood up and had to hold onto the bookcase, lightheaded. But it passed. He could manage.

He locked the door behind him as carefully as always. Yuri still had a key. And they’d never had any legal relationship – though Flynn had asked – so if and when the new chief and IA decided the city wasn’t liable for the hospital costs of Flynn’s mistakes, Yuri wouldn’t be liable for them either.

The night air was cold and crisp, biting into his chest where his half-fastened shirt exposed bare skin. Flynn sucked a deeper breath and let it chill him from the inside too.

Ironically, police training made sure he could drive one-handed.

He drove for a long time, out away from the city. Then the road he’d followed looped its way through a smaller patch of houses, and emerged facing towards the main road once more. He let it take him, followed it back towards his city. In the end, when he finally parked, it was in the carpark outside their division’s favourite bakery. It wasn’t right, he should keep going, but the needle was hovering over 'E', and his hand was starting to shake. He turned the engine off and sat back, feeling his heartbeat in bright washes of pain from his shoulder.

He unclipped his holster, where it dug into his hip, and freed the gun, solid in his hand. His thumb stroked the safety on and off, thrilling stupidly in the satisfaction of violating 'appropriate gun handling'. When the knock came on his window, he jumped - pain spiking - and slammed the safety on again. His heart was still pounding when he hit the door release. 

"Leblanc?"

Leblanc swung himself into the passenger seat and pulled the door shut. Flynn shivered. For a long minute they just sat there.

"Kid. Do you need me to pretend I got here five minutes later?"

"I -- no?" For a minute Flynn really didn't know the answer, and he realized that frightened him. He hugged his arm tighter against his chest. He couldn't stop shivering. "What time is it?"

"Early."

"I don't want to go home. I don't think I like my apartment anymore." Flynn swallowed. "I don't feel very well."

Leblanc reached over, and Flynn blinked as the older detective felt his forehead, as if he were a kid. "I'd take you back to the hospital, but they'd ask what happened, and right now I think you'd tell them, wouldn't you?"

Flynn tracked Leblanc's hand, where the carpark light reflected off his watch. "Yuri kissed me. I think he's happy he won. Because being a cop wasn't any good."

Leblanc got out of the car, and Flynn bit down until his teeth ground rather than chattered. Wrong things to say. Leblanc was still a good cop.

Flynn's own door opened, and he started up at Leblanc. "I'm sorry. You're still a good cop."

Leblanc reached across Flynn to undo his seatbelt. He smelled like the Knights Bar, smokey and a little gross and safe. "Come on up, kid."

Flynn stumbled, getting out of the car, but Leblanc held him up. Leblanc's Volvo was two spaces over and one up. Flynn balked as they reached the passenger side door. "I don't want to go home."

"You can sleep on my couch."

Flynn let Leblanc urge him into the car, cradled his left arm with his right while Leblanc snapped the seatbelt into place. He tried to rouse himself to greater awareness. "I don't have my keys."

"I do."

Flynn had missed that happening. It felt like maybe he was missing a lot. "My gun-"

"I've got that too. But I'm going to hold onto it for you."

That- That was good. That sounded better than the things in Flynn's head. "Okay." He made himself meet Leblanc's eyes. "Thank you."

Leblanc looked upset, but he still smiled. "You okay for a second? I need to tell Lowell to stop looking. I won't say anything else."

Flynn nodded, not sure why Yuri would be looking. But he didn't know why Leblanc was here either. Outside the car, Leblanc sent a text, and his phone went off almost immediately. Flynn watched through the window as he answered, 'yes'd' something, 'no'd' something else, and frowned until his moustache turned into little pointy spikes. 

"You can talk to him when he decides to call you! And not before!"

Flynn realized it must be Yuri on the line, must be about himself. He should intervene, should speak to Yuri, but even thinking about it made everything ache further. He didn't want to talk to Yuri. He shut his eyes, and waited for Leblanc to return to the car. When he did, the air that came in from the parking lot had begun to smell like baking bread.

It was barely a ten minute drive, but Flynn found himself nearly nodding off despite the pain. He'd been to Leblanc's house before, it was small, and homey, and still held traces of Leblanc's mother. It was warm inside, and Canary, Leblanc's multicoloured and overweight cat, met them in the hallway with a disgruntled meow and sneezed on Flynn's pants leg. He must have still smelled of Repede.

After that he remembered snatches of time- Leblanc's gentle, professional pat-down (found: his prescription painkillers, no other weapons), the shock of cool water when he drank, the pull of Leblanc's worn-out, cat-furred couch like a black hole. His reward for taking his medicine was the hugest, softest quilt he'd ever used, and he remembered curling himself into a burrito and telling Leblanc he was never getting it back.

This time, when he woke up, there was daylight sneaking in around Leblanc's venetian blinds. There were pills and water on the coffee table, and Canary was eyeing him from the floor. She wiggled at him, assessed, wiggled again, and jumped up onto the couch to breathe fishily in his face before making herself a bed on his thighs.

He took the painkillers, and curled deeper into the quilt. Canary vibrated at him, kneading vaguely at his hip. He felt... strange. Not happy, not really, but no longer full of the sucking tired hopelessness of the night before.

Leblanc leaned around the doorjamb in a worn undershirt, holding a fork. "Eggs?"

It was strange to, since Alexei, but Flynn actually felt hungry. "Please. And thank you."


End file.
